MARTIN O'Neill could tempt Albion with the sweetener of one or more of his fringe players moving to The Hawthorns on loan in a bid to bring Jason Koumas to Villa Park.

MARTIN O'Neill could tempt Albion with the sweetener of one or more of his fringe players moving to The Hawthorns on loan in a bid to bring Jason Koumas to Villa Park.

The manager is thought to be looking at offering the likes of Gary Cahill and Isaiah Osbourne plus a sizeable cash offer of around #5million in a bid to land Koumas.

The player has remained in O'Neill's thoughts all summer but any deal is still fraught with difficulties.

Albion are reluctant to sell to their local rivals - which makes a move to Blues almost unthinkable for the Albion board - and the Welsh international still has three years remaining on his contract.

Albion chairman Jeremy Peace fought tooth and nail to hold on to the player when he returned from a loan at Cardiff City last summer and will not sell for anything less than a head-turning offer.

But the arrival of one or both of the Villa starlets would allow Tony Mowbray to concentrate more of his resources in other areas of team rebuilding.

The highly-regarded Cahill would give Albion a fall-back in case an acceptable offer came in for Curtis Davies.

England under-21 defender Cahill, still only 21, has a catalogue of admirers in the Championship and in the top flight following a loan spell at Burnley from November 2005 when he collected 10 player-ofthe-season awards in playing 32 games.

Despite making 20 starts last season he will have to kick his heels on the sidelines next term, such is the current dominance of Olof Mellberg and Martin Laursen with O'Neill also looking at bringing another centre-back to the club.

Birmingham-born Osbourne, aged 19, is a box-to-box midfielder who made a big name for himself in a clutch of games from October to January last season when he made eight starts and five substitute appearances.

The Baggies only made two loan signings last season: Sam Sodje from Reading and Sherjill MacDonald in January.

They are allowed to make four season-long domestic loan signings next season and Peace has already indicated it is a road they will go down this year.

Peace has said previously: "If it's there and it's available we should use it. We probably could have used it more last season.

"We will probably have, provided they're of the right quality, more loan players this season than we had last season."